Theck's MATLAB TPS analysis - WotLK/3.x

[Orthien]

I was wondering TPS wise how 3/3 Redout now stands against 3/5 Reckoning assuming hit and expertise capped 50% avoidance with 1000block and Shiver. Trying to deside if redouts still worth it. If its still in redouts favor would a slow DPS weapon swing it much in reckonings favor.

[theckhd]

I was wondering TPS wise how 3/3 Redout now stands against 3/5 Reckoning assuming hit and expertise capped 50% avoidance with 1000block and Shiver. Trying to deside if redouts still worth it. If its still in redouts favor would a slow DPS weapon swing it much in reckonings favor.

See the Talent Analysis and this recent Weapon Speed calcluations.

Interestingly, it also beats out Broken Promise for everything but the 5S+5R spec. Those points in Reckoning have gone from around 28 TPS per point to nearly 40 for a slow weapon like BP. Still not quite as good as Conviction, but getting close.

And just to reiterate what I said last time, the value of each point in Redoubt will decrease exactly the same way block value does in the region of diminishing returns, and will drop to 0 once you're above the ShoR block value cap. Keep in mind that dropping the talent might bring you back into the DR region again though.

The BV break points at which the points in Redoubt actually become useless for threat should be easily calculated. The cap is 3161 BV, so if you let B be the base block value break point when 1.2*B=3161, then the break point with 3/3 Redoubt is 1.3*B=1.3(3161/1.2). Thus:
If you have over 3434 block value with 3/3 Redoubt, you'll see no difference in threat between 2/3 and 3/3 Redoubt
If you have over 3448 block vlaue with 2/3 Redoubt (3736 with 3/3), you'll see no difference in threat between 1/3 and 2/3 Redoubt
If you have over 3477 block vlaue with 1/3 Redoubt (4109 with 3/3), you'll see no difference in threat between 0/3 and 1/3 Redoubt

[theckhd]

just curious is there a legend for the all the abriviations your using?

The first post contains a glossary of commonly used terms. For the weapon abbreviations, anything not in the glossary will be defined in the post itself.

[kand]

I'm "overcapped" defense, overcapped unhittable (block capped 102 whatever people are calling it now) and overcapped hit. Which weapon enchant should I use? Accuracy would still give me crit. Would the crit be enough to maintain accuracy above superior potency? I would think superior potency would become more useful if one was to no longer receive any benefit from the "hit" portion of accuracy.

I'm not a fan of the armor reduction for berserking, titanium weapon chain would be reduced to 50% disarm reduction enchant.

[theckhd]

I'm "overcapped" defense, overcapped unhittable (block capped 102 whatever people are calling it now) and overcapped hit. Which weapon enchant should I use? Accuracy would still give me crit. Would the crit be enough to maintain accuracy above superior potency? I would think superior potency would become more useful if one was to no longer receive any benefit from the "hit" portion of accuracy.

I'm not a fan of the armor reduction for berserking, titanium weapon chain would be reduced to 50% disarm reduction enchant.

Being hit-capped would negate most of the value of Accuracy, as the crit portion is not a huge threat boost. The Ti Weapon Chain would be nearly useless as well. Keep in mind both enchants will still give you some threat, as you'll still get some spell hit out of them.

Either way, you'll get more mileage out of Superior Potency if you're hit-capped without the weapon enchant, or the old BC Potency enchant if you want to trade ~2 TPS for some block value.

Alternatively, if you're hit-capped through enchants or gems on other items, you could drop those for more stam or avoidance and go with Accuracy.

[majiben]

I'm "overcapped" defense, overcapped unhittable (block capped 102 whatever people are calling it now) and overcapped hit. Which weapon enchant should I use? Accuracy would still give me crit. Would the crit be enough to maintain accuracy above superior potency? I would think superior potency would become more useful if one was to no longer receive any benefit from the "hit" portion of accuracy.

I'm not a fan of the armor reduction for berserking, titanium weapon chain would be reduced to 50% disarm reduction enchant.

The weapon chain does not stack with PoJ which is a very popular talent. Not that there is a raid boss that disarms outside of Attumen in Kara. Is there a reason you're looking for more threat? Being hit capped usually means you're in threat heavy gear and it might be wise to seek out more survival including +26 agility.

[theckhd]

Now that all of the 3.2 weapons have been discovered, I've run the weapon analysis again, including nearly every relevant weapon we'd be interested in.

3.2 Weapon Analysis - Complete

If you haven't read the earlier version of this calculation, here's the short short version:

• Slow weapons are good for us, because SoV 5-stack proc rewards weapon speed, at roughly 28 TPS per 0.1 weapon speed.
• The only spec-related choice that can change the outcome is Reckoning. Each point in Reckoning will add 24-28 TPS for a 1.5-1.6 speed weapon, while it will add 40-45 TPS for a 2.5-2.6 speed weapon.

This means that for a weapon with equal DPS but a 2.6 weapon speed, it will be about 280 TPS ahead of a tank weapon with 1.6 weapon speed, and the swap will give you an additional 16-17 TPS for each point you have in Reckoning.

This time around, I'm not going to investigate as many specs, since it doesn't make much difference outside of Reckoning. Since most tanks will likely go the 53/18 route, we'll just look at a 1V+3C spec, as well as a 3R+1V+3C spec for those who choose to pick up Reckoning with their discretionary points. If you spec 5 into Reckoning somehow, you'll have to add 56 or 80 TPS to these numbers as appropriate to get an accurate comparison.

I've included all of the 2.6-speed melee DPS weapons from Coliseum, as well as Vulmir from Ulduar for a benchmark. There's no point in adding the 1.6-speed melee DPS weapons, as we'd be better off using a tanking weapon if we're going with a fast weapon. In addition, the difference in TPS between fast tank weapons and fast DPS weapons is very small.

Since there are different names for many of the items, I've generated tables and plots for both Alliance and Horde versions of the weapons. Note that this list is not incorporating racial expertise bonuses - in a close race, the expertise bonus will probably tip the scales in favor of the race's preferred weapons. Be sure to factor that in for yourself if you're using this to gauge an upgrade.

Setup
Rotation: 969
Seals: SoV
Glyphs: V
Talents: 1V+3C and 3R+1V+3C (see the Glossary or the talent analysis if you don't know what these mean)
Gear: Theck's 8.5 Progression Set
Weapons: Too many to list, basically every tank weapon in WotLK as well as all 2.6-speed melee DPS weapons from Coliseum and Vulmir from Ulduar. MMO-Champion data used for the Coliseum weapons, wowhead for the rest.

The data table and first plot will be sorted both by instance and type. The top group on the graph is all slow DPS weapons, the middle group is Coliseum tanking weapons, and the bottom group is Ulduar and Naxx tanking weapons. The table is inverted (DPS weapons at the bottom, tank weapons at the top).

Code: Select all

Alliance List (scroll down for Horde)
                                    TPS       
Weapon                  ilvl   1V+3C  3R+1V+3C
Broken Promise           213    7770    7887 
Peacekeeper Blade        219    7558    7630 
Stoneguard               219    7631    7709 
Legacy of Thunder        219    7697    7780 
Last Laugh               226    7694    7773 
Titanguard               232    7749    7830 
Shiver                   232    7752    7832 
Sorthalis                239    7819    7901 
Crusader's Glory (232)   232    7703    7779 
Crusader's Glory (245)   245    7835    7913 
Honor of the Fallen      245    7853    7935 
Silverwing Defender      258    7999    8084 
The Grinder (232)        232    7924    8048 
The Lion's Maw (232)     232    7938    8063 
Vulmir                   239    8029    8154 
The Grinder (245)        245    8063    8192 
The Lion's Maw (245)     245    8082    8210 
Stormpike Cleaver (245)  245    8125    8254 
Remorseless              258    8224    8357 
Stormpike Cleaver (258)  258    8275    8410

Horde List
                                     TPS       
Weapon                   ilvl   1V+3C  3R+1V+3C
Broken Promise            213    7770    7887 
Peacekeeper Blade         219    7558    7630 
Stoneguard                219    7631    7709 
Legacy of Thunder         219    7697    7780 
Last Laugh                226    7694    7773 
Titanguard                232    7749    7830 
Shiver                    232    7752    7832 
Sorthalis                 239    7819    7901 
Ardent Guard (232)        232    7703    7779 
Ardent Guard (245)        245    7835    7913 
Blood and Glory           245    7853    7935 
Orgrim's Deflector        258    7999    8084 
Blackhorn Bludgeon (232)  232    7924    8048 
Frostblade Hatchet (232)  232    7938    8063 
Vulmir                    239    8029    8154 
Blackhorn Bludgeon (245)  245    8063    8192 
Frostblade Hatchet (245)  245    8082    8210 
Hellscream Slicer (245)   245    8125    8254 
Cudgel of the Damned      258    8224    8357 
Hellscream Slicer (258)   258    8275    8410 

Horde Names
Again, we see BP is a strong contender in the pre-Coliseum group, ahead of everything but Sorthalis in the pre-Coliseum division. Interestingly, the entry-level Coliseum-10 weapon (Crusader's Glory for Alliance, Ardent Guard for Horde) also falls short of BP as well as Shiver and Titanguard due to the lack of hit rating. The Tribute versions of the 10-man weapons and the entry-level Coliseum-25 weapons (Honor of the Fallen, Blood and Glory) edge out Sorthalis, and the Tribute-25 weapons (Silverwing Defender, Orgrim's Deflector) beat the pants off of any tanking weapon available, as well as edging out the weaker 232-ilvl DPS weapons.

The strength of 2.6-speed weapons is evident immediately though, as even the 232-ilvl DPS weapons have a solid lead over all but the highest-end fast tanking weapon.

Probably the most amusing part of all of this is that a Naxx-25 item is faring so strongly that it's completely feasible for a tank in a fairly high-end progression guild would walk into Coliseum hard modes wielding it.


The next plots are just sorted differently, with all weapon types mixed together and sorted by TPS.

Horde Names

Finally, here's another "sorted by TPS" plot with only the tanking weapons on it.

Horde Names

TLDR version:

• Slow weapons are good for threat. If you have a Broken Promise in the bank still, it may be time to dust it off if you haven't had much luck in Ulduar hard modes.
• If you really want to dish out the TPS, grab a 2.6-speed melee DPS weapon for those threat-heavy fights.

[Ragingsoul]

Thx for the update Theck. just saw you put Vumir as a ilvl239 when it's 232, but it's not really relevant.

Anyway, I was wondering, seeing around 3% partial resisted dmg on every WWS report for every ability if we can get this down with spell pen? and would it be worth it to have a little? if getting let's say 1 gem for 20spell pen can get us like 1 or 2% more dmg, it's maybe not so bad.
But I have no clue if spell penetration would lower those partial resisted.

[Gamingdevil]

Thx for the update Theck. just saw you put Vumir as a ilvl239 when it's 232, but it's not really relevant.

Anyway, I was wondering, seeing around 3% partial resisted dmg on every WWS report for every ability if we can get this down with spell pen? and would it be worth it to have a little? if getting let's say 1 gem for 20spell pen can get us like 1 or 2% more dmg, it's maybe not so bad.
But I have no clue if spell penetration would lower those partial resisted.

Spell penetration does nothing whatsoever in PvE, it only works against resistances.

[Ragingsoul]

Spell penetration does nothing whatsoever in PvE, it only works against resistances.

ah ok. so no way to remove resist? that sucks.

[jere]

ah ok. so no way to remove resist? that sucks.

Well to be more specific, it only does stuff against "additional" resistances. Every boss has a base resistance value. Spell Penetration has no effect against that at all. Spell Penetration only counters resistance in addition to the base value (hence why I referred to it as "additional"). I *think* some of the older bosses were noted to have that, but the number was so few and the benefit was so small that it didn't make much sense to worry about. In general, as the poster you quoted said, it only applies to player added resistances.

[theckhd]

Thx for the update Theck. just saw you put Vumir as a ilvl239 when it's 232, but it's not really relevant.

Thanks, I hadn't caught that. It's just a cosmetic issue though, probably not worth the trouble of updating and re-uploading all of the plots.

[kand]

The weapon chain does not stack with PoJ which is a very popular talent. Not that there is a raid boss that disarms outside of Attumen in Kara. Is there a reason you're looking for more threat? Being hit capped usually means you're in threat heavy gear and it might be wise to seek out more survival including +26 agility.

Not really a reason except that threat heavy usually equates to dps heavy. I'm a casual player whose guild hasn't even cleared naxx 10 though we've done FL+2. We raid about 3 hours a week max with a rotating line-up usually affording only 9 toons to the actual raid. Just picked up the conquest badge neck and replaced titansteel with the 219 heroic ToC helm so my stats are all out of whack. My play time is usually log on, help guild do a heroic log off.

With the other (even more) casual players in my guild the tanks often find themselves in need of high dps to make up for what may be lacking in our groups (rogues pulling 1.1-1.3K dps in gear rated for naxx 25 etc...), not to mention standing in fire, poison, i'm usually number 1 on cleanses as tank while doing 2.2K dps (landing me second or third on dps and first on total dmg). We still have fun.

Unless i'm missing something obvious I'm over the unhittable mark, though I'm really block heavy(could change to the dodge trinket) so agility would mainly come into play with armor increase.
Armory:
Kandiltu.

I need to mess with both my specs (and glyphs for holy), but I generally tank alongside another pally. We're trying to decide who is going to pick up vindication or if we should both just grab it. I never take persuit of justice.

[Serv]

Don't bother. Naxx isn't the Tier of content where anyone should bother about in depth tuning of gear in times of tier8 gear for free.

[abinning]

@Kand
I would recommend dropping 2 points out of conviction for Vindication. You can make up the dps loss with one new piece of conquest emblem gear.

I would also suggest farming out the Stam trinket fro normal ToC.